Five soldiers killed in Srinagar ambush

Five soldiers were killed and eight others injured when separatist guerrillas attacked an army convoy here with automatic weapons and grenades Monday, police said.

The attack came as the convoy, on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway, passed through the Hyderpora area, a senior police officer told IANS.

The attack came a day before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi arrive on a two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir.

"Militants opened indiscriminate firing from automatic weapons at the army convoy passing through Hyderpora area of the city on the bye-pass," the police officer said.

"They also hurled a grenade which exploded inside an army vehicle resulting in the death of five army men and injuries to eight others," the officer said, adding that the area has been cordoned off and searches are in progress to nail down the militants.

This is the second guerrilla strike in the Kashmir Valley during the past three days.

On Saturday, guerrillas killed two local policemen in a hit and run attack in the busy Hari Singh High Street market of Srinagar.

The Hizbul Mujahideen guerrilla group owned responsibility for Saturday's attack.

Both the attacks have come at a time when the security forces have sounded a high alert across the state in view of the prime minister's visit.

Separatist leaders, including the hardliner Syed Ali Geelani and the moderate Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, have given a protest shutdown call Tuesday to coincide with the visit.

Pro-freedom Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Muhammad Yasin Malik has also appealed to people to observe a protest shutdown Tuesday.